Tiptop
by David Finlay (10 Nov 06)

It's five years since I last drove a Superb, and in that time the model doesn't seem to have made much of an impression on the market. That's a pity, because I'm sure that if more people who were in the market for this kind of car were aware of it and prepared to take one for a test drive, the Superb would be a lot more popular than it is now.

This is the largest car in the Skoda range, so it was never going to the be the company's most popular model. Even at that, though, it takes the concept of "minority interest" to considerable lengths. Its best year so far in the UK has been 2005, when 2882 were sold; that's more than 10% of global sales, but it's still a tiny proportion of the 37,803 Skodas which found homes in this country.

And it's a margin of error figure compared with what has been achieved by the Ford Mondeo, Renault Laguna and Vauxhall Vectra, all of which are quoted by Skoda as direct competitors. If I happened to be in the market for one of those cars, I would be giving the Superb serious thought too, but perhaps that's only because I'm aware of it.

Even after its 2007 model year facelift, and with the heavily-chromed front end characteristic of all current Skodas, it doesn't advertise itself very well. You may not be aware of ever having seen one, but there might be one in your neighbourhood which you pass every day without realising, supposing it instead to be a Volkswagen Passat.

To a large extent, of course, it is a Volkswagen Passat, but that's no bad thing. And there are individual attractions which the Passat can't provide, such as impressively low pricing. The 2.5 V6 TDI tested here, in top-of-the-range Elegance trim and with Tiptronic automatic transmission, is very nearly the most expensive Superb there is (only the 2.8-litre V6 petrol version costs more), but it still comes in at a relatively lowly £21,715.

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